Letters

Sumant showed me a file which was looking very old from the appearance.
"What is this?" I asked.
"The letters Nikhil wrote to me" said Sumant.
"Wow so many letters?"
"Yes, they are 303 letters in total", Sumant was smiling as if he was proud to express this accomplishment.
"And are these the answers to your letters?" was my consequent question.
"Well, yes some of them are answers to my letters and some are written to me directly".

"They are dated 1990, so they are so old"
"Yes those were days when there was not much email and messenger communication popular. You know even the mobile phones were not much in the markets and people used to write letters to each other", Sumant said this as if he is describing dinosaurs from pre-historic ages. We laughed which confirmed we both have enjoyed the joke.

"I can feel the passion of collecting letters in a file so you can go back any time and read them again", said I
"Wow! you hit the nail", said Sumant, "that was the best part of those letters. I still go through them and spent many hours sometimes reading those moments. Nikhil is a poet so many a times he used to write poetry while writing to me, so that was first cut poetry written just for me."

"But you know what", I interrupted Sumant.
"What?"
"This electronic era ruined all the magic in communication. Now people don’t write letters"
"You cannot say so people still write letters", argued Sumant.
"Do you still write letters? Do you still add new received letters to this file?" was my cruel question.
"No, now-a-days Nikhil doesn't get that much time so he could write a letter on paper and neither do I. But yes there is email now"
"Oh, yes but what about the charm and the collection of letters which used to give happiness in many folds"

"Sumant smiled at me"
"What? Why are you smiling?"
"My friend", Sumant said "you have to find ways to achieve the same thing in new environment"
"I was perplexed", I thought I missed something because what Sumant was saying was going bouncer to me.
"Can you explain?" was my innocent question

"See you mentioned the magic of letters coming by post and the collection of those letters in a file as we have done and the going back to each letter again facility"
"Yes how romantic it feels"
"We still do all those things but in different ways."
"No way" I exclaimed "you mean you still writing letters and collecting them so you can go back and read again? Without papers? With emails? Emails doesn’t have that charm” I was sounding like a disappointed person.

"See", said Sumant "how you utilize the tools is completely your choice and we can use it creatively"
"Ok, let me tell you what we do now a day so you can appreciate the creativity"
I was all ears now...

"There are many email providing sites now a days which provide email accounts with lots of space. We can create many accounts for us on those free sites. We chose Google mail GMail for us and opened an account for just the two of us. We don’t use that account as an email account. Actually both of us operate that account so we both have username and password of this account."

"You mean a single account is operated by both of you? And how does it work?"
"I write a letter to my account and post it so it is received in the same account and remains there as unread letter. When he logs into the account he can see the unread letter in bold font so he opens that letter and reads it. He replies to that letter and that also is received in the same account."

"Wow, so you use this mail account as a file for letters"
"Yes now you got it, we can go back any time and see old letters and now we can even attach photos, songs and different type of files to our letters."

"Wow this seems a great idea", said me
"Yes and now we got a universally available file of letters. And you know Google also provides documents, calendar and photos support for the same account so we got to store lots of things which is even better that our old days paper file."

"True", I said agreeing fully with Sumant. What an idea I said to myself. "But Sumant this will need lots of trust in each other because you share the same username and password?"

"Yes but that is what friendship is, isn't it?" he asked "It is built on trust"

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(photo by Muffet originally from flickr)

Difference

"Hi Rajesh, I have one question", said I as soon as I saw Rajesh is having some leisure time.
"Yes what is it?"

"I wanted to ask the question since two days and was trying to find the right time to do that."
"Now is the right time you can say, and ask now, will you?” Rajesh smiled while uttering these words.

"You apologized to Madhav about that joke incidence, you remember?"
"Yes I do"
"Do you really feel you have done so wrong by cutting a joke for Madhav that you had to apologize?"
"Let me think, I just did that without much thinking as I felt it should be done at that moment."
"Now when I think I can say yes, Madhav approached me and told me that he felt offended when I cracked one joke for him.", Rajesh paused and started again;

"Even if the joke was un-intentional still it caught Madhav's attention and he felt offended. See this time Madhav approached me instead of complaining to any one else. I appreciated his act and I apologized."

"Yes Rajesh but the question is do you really think that was necessary? You could have explained him that the joke was just for humor and was nothing to do with making Madhav un-happy"

"See, I must agree that I still don’t feel the joke was out of place but what I also agree that Madhav was hurt. This is not the issue of what is correct or what is wrong. When I saw Madhav was hurt it is my consideration about Madhav's feelings that I felt I must say sorry."

"The root of the act lies in understanding the feelings other person is having about a particular incidence."

"Oh, so you mean the act of apologizing was just to make Madhav happy?"

"No my dear, it is about respecting co-worker's feelings. It is about respecting the difference of opinion. I have my opinions but I should also respect opinions of my co-workers which may be poles apart from mine. And when I felt that my act made my friend un-happy I respected his feelings, accepted that It was me whose act made him un-happy and then it was spontaneous that I apologized through my heart."

"Got it Rajesh and yes you are true in saying that" said I.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Sarah)

Discussion

Things were not working right. Something was wrong. I was having this feeling since many days. All my colleagues seemed to cope up with the work pressure and deadlines. Somehow I was restless.

Was it I who was only restless? What to do now? Who to contact? Will there be anyone who can understand my situation and give some solution?

"Calm down Calm down Sameer!” I said to myself. "First try to know the real problem" I repeated the words I have heard in some movie, where the teacher trains her students to overcome hurdles.
Sometimes movies also help you this way, they teach things.

"And what is your real problem Sameer? Can you write down the most important three issues that are disturbing you currently", I again talked to me.
"Yes why not", said I; internally knowing that I wasn’t having the slightest clue of what I was about to say next. There wasn't any thought yet in my mind about the most important issues before now. But this self dialog was helping, I thought, and again got engaged in the dialog.

"You see I work so hard but the work given to me is so much that I cannot complete it in the given time frame. What ever I do it never gets appreciation, and I am always behind the schedule."
"So is it the time management problem? or work management problem?", my second mind asked me.
"No it is the appreciation problem, I feel useless if no one appreciates what I have done."
"Oh, so you got the issue nailed now," said my second mind and continued, "I will rephrase the problem now and it is you have no problem to work late and work hard, and only you want is people should note what you are doing and should appreciate the work done in time."
"Exactly! You said it"

"Now let us try to find a solution to this issue", said my second mind. "Yes yes", I responded eagerly and "how to do that?" was my obvious question.

"Well I don’t know Sameer", said my second mind; "but I must find one for you as I am the creative part of your existence."

"Hey you see that calendar?” asked my mind.
"Where oh on the right wall yes", said I
"And it says bhiu nakos mii tujhyaa paathishii aahe, means don’t be afraid I am always with you"
"So..."
"It gives me one idea, see we work for someone. The output of our work, the deliverables is property of our company. So if there is any problem we should reach above our position to convey the problems to them who own these deliverables."

"Hey do you really think this can solve the issue? And not aggravate it, look I don’t want to be cornered as a nagger or an in-competent employee", said I with force.

"You may be right but what I think is if all the ways are exhausted and you have left with no option, there is a option to surrender to the supreme authority, and for us the supreme authority in work are our superiors."
"I agree to this, but how to proceed"
"Plan a meeting with the management and raise the concern"
"Will that help?"
"It may or may not but it will provide us a feeling that we have done our job of telling them at the right time"
"And what should I tell them"
"All the things you told me, all the issues and the exact thing what we pointed out some minutes ago".

"Hey you know what, I am feeling good now. Talking to you was great Sameer!"
"No problem yaar after all I am your second mind, and the creative one, remember!"

"You know", I said, "I feel fresh after all this thoughts. I can work with energy again now. The problem seems to have vanished. I no longer feel dejected. But yes I will keep the solution you suggested in mind. Whenever there will be the time when I am left with no other option I will follow the “surrender to the supreme power” way what you told."
"No problem yaar, but do you agree that problem should not persist. If there is something haunting you in the back of your mind then it affects the work and the work is the only criteria to prove your existence."
"Yes I agree to that"

"So shall we celebrate with coffee now?” asked my second mind. "Yes by all means", I nodded my face marching towards the pantry to have a cup of coffee.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Vanessa)

Energy Dose

"Hello Sushant", said Vikram a colleague working with me in my office.

We were rising up. We were in an elevator. Usually we meet only in places like this. The elevator, the down stairs cafeteria, or the terrace smoking club.

We usually share things like project schedules and trivia.

"Hey, I was there in the meeting when you presented the proposal. That was awesome man. I really liked it", said Vikram.

"What to say now", Sushant was thinking, “Thanks Vikram, do you really think I did well?"

"Well! I said awesome man. It was really effective and the people seem to listen to you with full concentration"

Vikram stepped out as the elevator stopped at fourth floor. The door closed again and now I was again rising towards my work place, the sixth floor.

I was smiling. This was a good start of the day. It really feels good when somebody appreciates your actions and behavior. Actually this was just a small gesture Vikram showed in the elevator. I sensed that Vikram was honest in saying what he said and my mood became great.

I know one should not get carried away by praise, appreciation or flattery, but some drops of honest appreciation always make your life energetic. Vikram did that for me this morning.

I also made up my mind to express honest appreciation for my colleagues whenever possible as I now know these little words make a lot of difference in their daily routine life.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

Gift Crazy

It was birthday time again. When there is a up-coming birthday of your dear one it usually become birthday season. You start preparations like thinking about the possible gift. A gift having some shock value, some surprise, some personal touch.

He was thinking of giving something unique to her. Something which may not be a gift in true conventional sense. Something which will make her appreciate his feelings towards her.

What can be the gift which will make her smile? Something which will make her feel important. Something which will tell her that he really thought for her. Something which may be silly, rather it should be silly enough to amaze her.

He was enough crazy, to figure out the gift and he did figured out. That day he purchased a plain diary. The birthday was after 15 days so he had 15 days to work on the gift. He started writing in the diary for her. He kept on writing. While writing for her he got time to think about her. To remember her with cause was a great pleasure for him.

The day arrived. She came to his house. He was eagerly waiting for this moment. He wished her happy birthday. He was anxious about what she will say, after he presents the gift to her. Will she be mad? Will she be amazed? Lots of questions were crossing his mind.

“Come I have a gift for you”, he said to her.
“Birthday Gift, where is it, I cant wait” she responded.

Then he took out the well wrapped diary and presented her in style.
“Happy Birthday to you Seema! This is just a simple gift for you.”

She opened the wrapper slowly in her style. She folder the wrapper and kept it with caution into her purse. Yes, she has a habit of keeping even the wrappers of my gifts. Then she opened the diary. The diary was written from cover to cover no line left blank.

All the pages of the diary were filled with just one sentence. “I love you Seema”. She browsed the pages seeing all over there was just one sentence written.

She looked at him. “Thank you”, said she with tears in her eyes. She held his hand in her hand and said
“Very much like you, just your style.”

She said nothing more. The tear drops in her eyes was the real treasure he cherished for his life.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy dee m)

Self Singing

I was there just because Abhijeet insisted. That was a nice evening gathering with people of different ages. Some were retired some were students. There were those also who seem to be around my age not a student and not yet retired.

Since many days Abhijeet was pestering me to be involved with this group and be a part of their evening meeting they conduct normally once a month. I was quite hesitant and was hiding away saying “I don’t know anybody there, so how can I get involved suddenly"

"Look! You need to do all the things first in your life. SO take this as the first incident to get involved in a group where I belong and I know you will like them."

So here was I now observing all the others in that room.

"Ok, friends let us start today’s activity", one good looking short haired guy took the lead position and started with these words.

"We have a new friend with us today", he was looking towards me now so others can follow his gaze, and what they eventually did.
"I smiled and lowered my neck so as to make a greeting gesture"
"Dinesh," said the guy showing one hand towards me as if he was presenting me to all.

"Dinesh, I am Radha"
"Dinesh, I am Sudhir"
This went on for all the people present there and all of them uttered my name first and then introduced themselves. It was a weird experience to hear my name again and again from all of them.

"Ok. Now our today’s activity and it is self singing", said Vikas. This was the guy who started the meeting.

"I will explain again for those who have forgotten the things that self singing is singing for self. It should be done by closing your eyes. The song should be anything that comes to your mind as soon as you close your eyes."

"Oh, no I cannot sing", was my immediate reaction and internally I was cursing my self about listening to Abhijeet.

"No, I wont sing in front of all these people", was my strong opinion. I kept it with myself as my number was not the first one.

Radha started singing. She was singing with eyes closed. All listened to her and she was not bad. The strange thing happened when she was in the middle of the song. All people started hooting her, teasing her and laughing at her and talking with each other. This was rude and I felt anger rising in my mind. Radha was still singing as if she was unaware of the surroundings. She finished her song and all clapped for her.

"Dinesh, I know what you may be feeling after seeing what has happened.” said Vikas and continued, "Let me explain the activity in details."

"We have to sing to self, so all of us will start hooting after some time and you have to continue singing as if you have nothing to do with the world. If you can do that the claps are for your self song"

"It doesn’t matter whether you sing good or bad, any way you will be hooted after some time and you have to be honest with yourself to sing a song for self"

That day I sang one song closing my eyes. It was lakadi ki kathi from film masoom. I was real bad in terms of music and tune but when I felt others have started hooting I enjoyed keeping my eyes closed and continue singing.

While returning home I was happy. I don’t know who invented the weird game but it made me happy internally and gave me power to sustain some more days of this hectic world.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Allan McKenzie)

Possibilities

"You always recommend different books to us."

This was more like a question than a statement. Or maybe that was more like a complaint. It was necessary now for Rajesh to ask the intentions of the maker of the statement.

"Yes Manish, when you like something there is an internal urge to spread the joy. This is the main motivation for me to recommend the books. Do you have any problem?", asked Rajesh

"No. Not like that. I was thinking whether you really learn something from these books? or have you ever experimented the things written in the books?"

"Yes of-course Manish, I have. In fact I almost try all the things I believe and where I agree with the author"

"No way. Say it again. Really? Do you mean you really follow the things given in the books? Can you give an example?"

"Yes why not. Do you remember the book I recommended some days ago, by Robert Schuller, named Tough Times Never Lasts Tough People Do?", asked Rajesh

"Yes, I do"

"There is a chapter in that book about raising funds to build crystal cathedral and the author has mentioned a way for brainstorming and positive thinking, Ok instead of telling you more about the book contents I will tell you the story how we got motivated and used the theory in one of our objective"

"Interesting, Rajesh I am all ears now, let the story begin.."

"One of our best friend is poet and has written many poems. We loved his poems and we wanted to publish his poem book. It was thought by our friends that printing the poem book and giving him as surprise will be a wonderful thing."

"Wow and then what happened", Manish.

"Yes but we all were studying in college and were not having that much funds to achieve this, but still then we started this effort as a project. We learned that to print a 100 page book of poems will cost us minimum Rs. 2000"

"So how did you solved the problem?", Manish.

"Wait, wait, I am also eager to reveal that. I was having the crystal cathedral in mind and the positive thinking concept always in my mind. I thought of one idea, as said in the book if you cannot find funds from one place think of different sources. If you want 1000 then either ask one person for 1000 or ask 1000 people for 1 and you can achieve even things which you feel are impossible"

"The idea was great and all my friends were also motivated with the idea. We created a list of all the well wishers who can lend some money to us and we were ready with 5 families who were either in relation with the poet friend or were knowing and fond of his poems. We explained them our project and told them that we will refund the amount after the book is printed. They happily lent us Rs.300 each to make a sum of Rs.1500."

"Wow, so you were more than half done", said Manish, excitement in his eyes.

"Yes but the remaining Rs. 500 were also very important and now we had exhausted our list of well wishers. Suddenly one of our friends came with an idea. He said why not sell this book before printing to all our friends. We will keep the pre-printing cost as Rs.10 and we will have to find 50 friends who will buy the book before it is printed."

"That was not fully impossible and we all started convincing our friends, friends of friends and we gathered the remaining Rs. 500 in 10 days. The book got printed and the day when we had all our copies in hands was a great day of celebration and was a reinforcing day for positive thinking."

"wow and then, was the poet friend knowing this?", asked Manish.

"We surprised him by presenting him copies of his poem book", we couldn't forget that day and that joy we went through. And see you now cannot say that books don't teach us. They do teach us lots of things. We can experiment with life and life is beautiful if we want it to be"

"Great! Now I am more than convinced Rajesh"

"And you know what Manish? We repaid all the Rs.1500 by selling 150 more copies of the books. We got total 500 copies from which we distributed the already sold 50 and we gave 100 copies to the poet friend and we sold many more copies and thus our complete project was a success. It was a big lesson for us about how to believe in your self and think positively"


Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Mak Patel)

Appreciation

Pravin was working for a software company as a consultant.

"So how is your work? You said you are with a company working as a software consultant Praveen", his friend Amar asked.
"Good, the people are good. There is one project manager Sagar", said Praveen "who closely coordinates with me in the project"
"And you know this Sagar is a very difficult guy, very demanding", added Pravin.

"Demanding? What type of demanding is he?” was the next question by Amar.

"You know Sagar is always pressing timelines and even he asks people to stay late for work."

"Sometimes they also feel that the urgency is a false urgency created by Sagar only to get the things done", told Praveen with wrinkles on his forehead.

"Even he is ridiculed on his back about his demanding nature.", Praveen started again as if remembering something, "that day I overheard the developers cracking joke on him"

"He was being ridiculed as a Captain of the project, software developer regiment, who is very strict and rude."

"Interesting", said Amar "then what happened next?" asked Amar again.
"Nothing, project is nearing completion and may be over this month then my contract with that company ends."

Some months later when Amar and Praveen were chatting on messenger

Praveen: Hi Amar

Amar: Hi Praveen whatsup hows life

Praveen: fine yaar, I joined a big MNC couple of months back.

Amar: great and what is the current project

Praveen: our company has outsourced one sub part of the project to one company, that company you know I was working as a consultant? And I am coordinating it.

Amar: oh yes, so it seems you suggested that company to them

Praveen: yes because I felt they could do things

Amar: and who is the project manager this time? I remember your Captain Sagar from the last experience.

Praveen: same Sagar. I demanded to work only with him.

Amar: oh god! You said he was difficult and pressing and demanding and what not last time, so how could you choose him for the work again.

Praveen: You know he is the guy who delivered the project in-spite of much turbulence. I observed him very closely. He often gets bad remarks, but you know what? he gets the things delivered.

Amar: hum so you say he is a good project manager for a client but not for the developers; see as soon as you have switched the roles you are praising him so deeply.

Praveen: you may be right, but I have seen many project managers and amongst them this guy really knows what he is doing and will always be preferred over others.

Amar: ok, time to go see you again Praveen

Now Praveen and Sagar are again working together, only the roles are different and this can be a start of great friendship.

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Jonathan Machen )

Integrity

We were chatting with friends. Sunil was also with us. Sunil is one of my good friends.

"..and she is very cute, and when she utters my name then wow it feels like somebody has sprinkled ice cold water on your face...", Rajesh was citing his experience with his girl friend.
"When I asked how much you love me, she said.."

"Wait.., Can I ask you one question?” interrupted Sunil in between.

"Yes?” Rajesh stopped looking towards Sunil with a question mark in his eyes.

"Have you told her that you will be describing your moments spent together in friends?"

"No. But that doesn’t makes difference.", said Rajesh indifferently

"So you are taking her for granted that she will not say anything when she comes to know this"

"Common yaar, you are making mountain of a mole. How come she will come to know? Who will tell her? You?"

"Rajesh, my friend, now you are becoming more difficult, now you are talking about lying to her and this breaks your integrity man, think about this."

Later I asked Sunil why he was stressing the topic, and whether he feels that after this will Rajesh really think on the topic?

"Look, I want to be honest with my opinion and values. I try to present them to all. This shows and is my character. Even if Rajesh doesn’t pay attention it is just like I reinforcing my values by re-stating them"

I liked the answer given by Sunil.

Tushar Joshi


(Image courtesy Chris Lim)

Rush Hour

Shridhar was waiting for his turn to come. It was a stationary and gift article shop. There was a little boy around 12 years also waiting for his turn to come. There was rush at this hour in the shop and the sales-boys were awfully busy serving all the people.

Suddenly the owner of the shop approached them.

"My apologies sir, it will take 10 minutes more to get some room for you. If this is not very urgent you can come after 10 minutes or if it is ok with you; you can wait here for 10 minutes. This doesn’t happen often but today lots of people have come at the same time."

"No, No, it’s ok", said Shridhar, "I will wait."
The little boy also stayed there as if he wants to wait and get the things today only.

The shop owner stayed with them and kept talking.

"So why don't you help getting some items for me, if you really care for me", Shridhar said internally feeling that he might be becoming rude now.

"You are right sir", said he "I can also start serving you and help all my boys working behind the counter. I feel talking to the customers waiting outside is my job in this shop as you people are very valuable to us. If I also start working like my sales boys then there will be nobody to take care of the customers waiting outside. We cannot lose you sir just because there is rush in our shop. So I have made it a point to talk with all the customers when they are waiting for their turn to come."

"Apologies again for the delay you are facing, yes sir now you can approach the counter, my boys will be happy to serve you", he said and turned to the little boy to ask what he has came for.

Shridhar got his items and also got an insight about the views of the shop owner. He also decided to visit the same shop again whenever in need of stationary and gift articles."

Tushar Joshi, Nagpur

(Image courtesy Dave Gingrich)